Relief coming: City adding public toilets

San Diego planning more restrooms to boost tourism, but facing hurdles

San Diego has struggled to provide public toilets for tourists and other downtown visitors. The city has a handful such as this one which has an attendant on Third Avenue between B and C Streets. Alma Cesena / U-T San Diego

San Diego has struggled to provide public toilets for tourists and other downtown visitors. The city has a handful such as this one which has an attendant on Third Avenue between B and C Streets. Alma Cesena / U-T San Diego

DOWNTOWN SAN DIEGO  For tourists and other downtown visitors who sometimes find themselves desperately searching for public restrooms when nature calls, it appears that some glorious relief is on the way.

Aiming to become as user-friendly as many other large cities across the nation and around the world, San Diego officials plan to more than double the one dozen public restrooms now open downtown over the next few years.

“We’ve got thousands and thousands of people in town this week for Comic-Con who could use a place to freshen up,” City Councilwoman Marti Emerald, noting that families with children especially crave more public restrooms, said last week. “It just makes sense all-around.”

Council President Todd Gloria said more public restrooms will mean less homeless people urinating on the streets and encourage residents to walk more and use mass transit.

Yes
82% (1076)

No
18% (236)

1312 total votes.

“This is fairly common in big cities, especially in public plazas and heavily-trafficked areas,” he said. “We haven’t kept up with our peer cities regarding the quality of our public restrooms or the density.”

Adding more public restrooms, however, has been challenging for the city and promises to remain difficult going forward.

With the revival of many American cities in recent decades has come a debate: Do public restrooms attract large homeless populations, or do they increase the usage of public spaces enough to prompt the homeless to move elsewhere.

The Girls Think Tank, a homeless advocacy group, said concerns about attracting more homeless people has been the No. 1 obstacle facing its multi-year campaign for more public restrooms downtown.

“There’s limited access to public restrooms for people on the street even though they’re a necessity,” said Heather Pollock, the nonprofit think tank’s executive director. “Public restrooms don’t attract people who aren’t already in the area, it just allows them to take care of a basic human need.”

Downtown merchants, however, have shown only limited support for more public restrooms, despite their frustration with non-customers sneaking in to relieve themselves in moments of desperation.

“People in the downtown area think restrooms are just for the homeless, but they’re not,” Emerald said.

Cost is another concern, with public restrooms typically costing as much as $150,000 to install and about $25,000 per year to maintain. But advocates say they would pay for themselves with increased tourism and lower costs for power washing urine off the streets.

Another hurdle for public restroom advocates in San Diego has been the problems San Francisco and Seattle suffered when those cities added numerous public restrooms.

Because they were lockable single-person restrooms and people on the street couldn’t see inside, they became havens for prostitution and illegal drug use. There were also problems with graffiti and keeping the restrooms clean.

San Francisco, which installed most of its public restrooms in 1995, is struggling to keep them open. Seattle, which began adding restrooms a few years later, essentially gave up on its program in 2008.

San Diego officials decided four years ago that the answer was the celebrated “Portland Loo,” a patented all-metal restroom with openings near the ground so passersby and law enforcement can tell what’s going on inside without compromising the privacy of users.

“It allows people to simply pass by and monitor their public facility,” said Carol McCreary, who helped design the loos as part of the Portland nonprofit Public Hygiene Lets Us Stay Human. “It’s the European tourists who complain the loudest about the lack of public restrooms in America, and they’re usually delighted when they get to Portland.”

The loos, which have become iconic in Portland and spread to a few other cities since they were first installed in 2008, also have their sinks outside the toilet area to reduce mischief and discourage homeless people from washing their clothes. In addition, the metal design is graffiti-resistant and easier to clean.

“They’re really great,” said Emerald, who’s been lobbying to bring them to San Diego since 2010. “They’re far superior to a lot of the public restrooms out there today.”

That enthusiasm, however, isn’t shared by merchants in Little Italy, who plan to open that popular neighborhood’s first two public restrooms next year.

Marco Li Mandri, chief executive of the Little Italy Association, said his group considered the Portland loos and decided to go with a more traditional design that doesn’t include locks.

“We don’t want bathrooms where people can lock themselves in and do whatever they’re going to do,” he said.

The merchants group has resisted city efforts to install public restrooms in Little Italy based on concerns they wouldn’t be well-maintained or policed.

“We wouldn’t support public restrooms unless we could manage them ourselves,” he said, expressing concern that city-managed restrooms could attract crime and vagrants. “That way we know it will become an asset and not a liability.”

The two Little Italy restrooms will be in Amici Park on San Diego Unified School District property and in a new public square — Piazza Famiglia — within a private development in the neighborhood.

While still committed to adding Portland loos, San Diego has struggled to get them installed. The Centre City Development Corporation bought two in 2010, but the state’s dissolution of redevelopment agencies and other bureaucratic problems have delayed their installation.

City officials said this week they’re still negotiating with Portland officials and hope the loos, which have been constructed and are ready to be shipped from Portland, can be added this fall. They’re planned for Park Boulevard between Market and G streets and 14th Street between Imperial Avenue and K Street.

Other new city bathrooms scheduled to open by the end of next year are slated for Horton Plaza Park, Lane Field, the North Embarcadero and Children’s Park at First and Island avenues. Six other public restrooms are planned but have no opening dates or funding.

Downtown’s 12 existing public restrooms are managed by several different organizations, including the city, the Port District, the county, a homeowners associations and businesses. The city is the only organization with plans to add more public restrooms.